“I Care + We Care = Customer Care” sets simple age-appropriate behavior expectations for students and provides positive reinforcement tools for good behavior. Team members also focus on ensuring school buses are clean and well-maintained.

The contractor partnered with Cincinnati Public Schools to hold a coat drive to benefit nearly 150 students in the district. First Student employees collected coats at the company's four Cincinnati-area locations.

The companies form a joint venture to provide student transportation services in the Hudson Valley, Westchester and Bronx areas in New York under the name First Mile Square LLC. The new venture will build on Mile Square’s customer relationships, existing fleet and staff and First Student’s safety practices, training programs and scalable resource model.

The school bus contractor is recognized with an Occupational Excellence Achievement Award. The honor is for companies that have reported injuries and illnesses that involved days away from work equal to or less than 50% of the Bureau of Labor Statistics rate for their national industry classification and have had no fatalities during the previous calendar year.

Bill Noftz will be responsible for the overall performance of the school bus contractor’s Washington state locations, including financial results, operational performance, safety, fleet and maintenance. Noftz has more than 25 years of experience in the school transportation industry.

The Union County Board of Developmental Disabilities in Ohio presents Sharon Parker with a Community Starfish Award. Alan Mustard, First Student location manager, says Parker is “dedicated to the children she helps transport, and is committed to making riding the bus a positive experience by showing them care, compassion and respect.”

The contractor’s Marlboro, Mass., multi-maintenance shop, which employs five ASE-certified technicians, receives the certification. A company official says its success is attributed to its emphasis on “safety, training and keeping up with current technology trends.”

The school bus contractor’s Belleville, Ill., terminal partners with two local school districts and the Greater Belleville Chamber of Commerce to collect 12,300 items of non-perishable food for the seventh annual “Drive Away Hunger” campaign. The items are donated to four food pantries in the area.

The school bus contractor will hold employee appreciation days Tuesday through Thursday this week in recognition of its nearly 60,000 drivers, attendants, technicians, managers and additional staff. Officials say every First Student location will hold an event to honor employees for their hard work and commitment.

Executives for some of North America's largest school bus companies discuss how allocating resources toward such efforts as driver training and preventive maintenance can benefit the operation by improving safety and employee morale, which, in turn, enhances profitability.

Alfred “Al” Lewis pulls the bus over, opens the passenger door and window to let the smoke out, sprays the fire extinguisher into the vents, and gathers the students in wheelchairs and carries them outside to safety. Meanwhile, the nurse helps the other two students out of the rear door.

The contract with Shawnee Mission (Kan.) School District 512 is a five-year agreement that includes the operation, maintenance and management of a fleet of more than 200 vehicles. The fleet services 50 schools throughout the district.

The school bus contractor receives a 2013 Appreciation Award from the University of Illinois Fire Service Institute for donating retired school buses to the institute for training. The institute provides firefighters throughout the world with training in settings that replicate real-life situations.

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